“Public Property” is a Multimedia Installation addressing the topic of control and transparency of digital data. The centerpiece is an automated puppet in the window front reacting to data collected about the visitors.

Technology has opened new possibilities over the past years and is becoming increasingly harder to avoid without feeling left out. Even though we use digital services on a daily basis, the underlying mechanisms are not fully comprehensible.

Transparency is important to build a healthy awareness of the impact of personal data being transferred and shared. We are running the risk of being puppets of a political and economic system that promises to make life simpler and more entertaining.

The installation aims to raise awareness about the fact that interactions with digital media are often held in-transparent in order to trick the participants into a certain behavior and to reveal data. A basic understanding of the digital information flow and the intentions of the companies behind it is crucial for a healthy digital future.

An automated puppet is acting as a symbol of the unaware user in our technologized world. The individual parts are moved by motors that respond to public data collected about the participant from a well known social visual media repository. A collage of the results is projected onto the tiles and reflected back into the room. Making fragments of the content visible to the audience.